House of Commons Hansard Debates for 21 Feb 1996 (pt 9)

Mr. Rowe: I am interested to hear that the hon. Gentleman is not going to fight old battles. Does that mean that, if he were in a position to do so, he would not reintroduce the GLC or anything like it?

Mr. Banks: Far from it. I said, "Don't get angry,get even." That is another matter altogether. I do not intend to get involved in sterile arguments, as we have won the arguments, and I know that from public opinion polls, business leaders, community leaders and from politicians who privately speak the truth outside the Chamber when they talk about the organisation of London. I just do not want to get involved in sterile arguments, as I know that we have won them, and we are getting ready for action. I am glad that Margaret Thatcher is out of the House, and I am quite content that she should spend her declining years lecturing bemused Japanese business men on her own version of flat-earth economics. All I know is that, as the last chairman of the GLC,I am still here and I look forward to the day when the Labour party in government restores London's strategic authority. That is a firm commitment.

The hon. Member for Dartford was right to mention the excellent speech given by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition--the John Smith memorial lecture on7 February. I quote for greater accuracy and for the record precisely what my right hon. Friend said about a strategic authority for London:

"It is hard to defend the way London is presently run. This is a great city and a huge asset to our country. It is a fantastic business and cultural centre and a great place to live and work. But it is

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crucially handicapped in dealing with its problems because it has no elected voice of its own. Unemployment, housing, clogged transport and pollution are just some of the challenges that Londoners face. London has been left to drift, and its quality of life has suffered.

And I am not alone. A large majority of Londoners want their own city-wide authority. Even Geoffrey Howe admitted recently that abolishing the GLC was a mistake. I hope that Lord Howe and others who recognise they were wrong in the past will support our plan to establish an elected authority, able to speak up for London and work together with business and the people to give the city the future it deserves."

Those were the words of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, who will soon be Prime Minister of this country.

Mr. Dunn: I do not want to stop the hon. Gentleman's flow of oratory--

Mr. Banks: I had finished.

Mr. Dunn: I am glad to hear it.

The hon. Gentleman argues strongly for a strategic authority for London. There is nothing wrong with that; it is entirely consistent with the views that he has expressed in the past. But where will the authority's boundaries be? That has huge implications for Dartford. If the M25 becomes a boundary, half my constituency will be run by London while the rest will be administered from as far away as Reading or Guildford. Is that a sensible arrangement for the people of Dartford?

Mr. Banks: I will deal with that a little later. The hon. Gentleman has identified real problems, however, and I am sure that he will make a constructive contribution to the consultation paper that will be issued shortly by my hon. Friend the Minister for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), the shadow Secretary of State for the Environment.

My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition made another interesting suggestion. There need not be a strategic authority in quite those terms; there could be another kind of voice for London. The question of its geographical boundaries exercised the House in 1964 when the London county council was abolished, and we shall doubtless return to such arguments when Labour is in government.

One of the upsetting features of our debate about the GLC is the way in which Tory Members of Parliament keep going on about how unnecessary the GLC was, and how no one misses it. When I asked the Minister to

"list those organisations which have acknowledged that the Government's decision to abolish the Greater London Council was right",

he replied:

"The fact that hardly anyone outside the Labour party is arguing for a return of the GLC seems amply to justify the Government's decision to abolish it."--[Official Report, 9 January 1996; Vol. 269, c. 9.]

That was probably written by a civil servant with the mental capacity of a split lentil, but the Minister signed it. Perhaps he even wrote it. He cannot genuinely believe it, however. He need only talk to the CBI, the chambers of commerce, the police or anyone else in London. I defy him to come back and say, with his hand on his heart--assuming that he can find it--that no one is other than content with the current position. That is nonsense; it is

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balderdash; it is palpably untrue. The Minister knows that--or, if he does not, he is deceiving himself to a breathtaking degree. Those who argue that the GLC had no functions and no purpose merely reveal a profound ignorance of London, exceeded only by their ideological inflexibility.

The hon. Member for Dartford said, "Let us leave things as they are." That is a typical Tory sentiment: smash it all up, kick it all around and then say, "Now we must leave it as it is. That is Conservatism--that is tradition." It has always been Conservative Governments who have kicked local government around, broken it up and then complained that it did not work afterwards.It was a Conservative Government who set up the London county council in 1892, and a Conservative Government who got rid of it in 1964 and created the GLC. Because they feared that they would not be able to gain political control of the LCC, they set up a new system. Unfortunately, it did not work: Labour gained control of the new strategic authority. And so it goes on.

Until the abolition of the GLC, strategic government in London had lasted for nearly 100 years. It was six years short of its centenary. How can Conservative Members argue that, having been considered necessary for nearly 100 years, strategic government was suddenly deemed unnecessary? That defies belief, and shows an utter lack of understanding of the way in which London is governed. As I have said, the abolition of the GLC had nothing to do with the needs or wishes of Londoners; it was all down to Margaret Thatcher's personal obsession. As I told the Minister, no one outside the Government really believes that London is better off without a strategic authority.

Lord Howe was brave and big enough to express his view. He was Deputy Prime Minister when the commitment was made to abolish the GLC and the metropolitan councils. When the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) realised that the 1983 Tory manifesto mentioned the abolition of the GLC, he said that he was shocked, and that it had been included by Margaret Thatcher personally: the manifesto had been drafted by her own fair hand. London's government cannot be organised on the basis of the petty obsessions of individuals--even eminent individuals such as Prime Ministers.

Conservative Members often talk of the grants that the GLC gave to the English Collective of Prostitutes. One would think that that was all that it had ever done. Let me list some of the functions that it inherited from the LCC. It was responsible for London Transport, traffic lights, waste disposal, the fire service, civil defence, the south bank arts complex, London's bridges and tunnels, the Thames barrier, the green belt, historic houses, the history of London, scientific services, regional parks and open spaces such as Hampstead heath, Crystal palace and Victoria and Battersea parks, London's strategic planning, museums and art galleries and the national sports centre. The LCC and the GLC built new towns, many of which are represented by hon. Members outside London. They constructed seaside homes. People were able to move around London; we are now experiencing the problems associated with a lack of mobility.